About This Project

I'm inventing scalable, simplified and economic carbon removal solutions based on the latest advances in AI, surface proteomics and biology.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Continuing excessive CO₂ emissions could soon double preindustrial levels and exacerbate global warming unless sequestration is rapidly scaled up. Chemical sequestration is being trialled but current methods are energetically expensive, require considerable investment in facilities close to large emitters and are not very effective with low- CO₂ percentage outflows. Utilising photosynthetic cyanobacteria is a possible alternative. Cyanobacteria are responsible for approximately a quarter of global primary production (conversion of CO₂ to biomass) and could remediate direct anthropogenic outflows of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases (e.g. Nitrous oxide- N₂O) from industrial sources, including many low-CO₂ percentage emitters.

What is the significance of this project?

Successful implementation of cyanobacteria for CO₂/N₂O sequestration is dependent on utilising fast growing strains. The recently discovered species, Synechococcus PCC 11901 (PCC 11901), demonstrates the fastest growth and highest biomass accumulation of any known cyanobacterium, can be cultured in seawater with minimal nutrients and is genetically amenable. However, since it is a unicellular species, it can only be harvested via energetically and commercially expensive methods like centrifugation. Generating PCC 11901 strains that sediment, similar to easily harvestable species used to produce the food supplement Spirulina, would make commercialisation of cyanobacterial carbon sequestration more cost effective and easy to implement at smaller scale.

What are the goals of the project?

The major goal of this project is to engineer new strains of PCC 11901 that rapidly sediment and can be cheaply grown and harvested. Specifically, I will utilise recently developed genetic tools to engineer markerless and non-hazardous strains of cyanobacteria that are simultaneously: (i) as productive as wild-type PCC 11901; (ii) can sediment without external energy input and therefore are compatible with the most rapidly scalable and economic harvesting methods. Such strains could potentially enable cost reductions of ~90% and thereby cross tipping points of mass adoptions similar to solar energy which is now being rolled out at scale after crossing economic tipping points and emerging as the most cost-effective solution in most regions.